Hathaway – Confidence Severely Damaged, Chaos to Accelerate

Four-decade veteran John Hathaway told King World News, “Let’s face it, the euro is a lot bigger deal than Lehman Brothers and the subprime credit mess.” The prolific manager of the Tocqueville Gold Fund also warned, “Confidence has been severely damaged” and “…investors need to be prepared for the chaos to accelerate.” Here is what Hathaway had to say about the ongoing crisis: “To me the big picture hasn’t changed. We have ongoing paralysis in Europe. I was there for the past ten days, and most people I spoke with just threw up their hands. I think to expect that there is going to be any resolution of this situation any time soon is a far-fetched dream. I just don’t see it happening.”

John Hathaway continues:

“So I think that mess is going to say with us for a very long time. I don’t know how it’s going to be resolved, but I do think it is very constructive for gold because what you are seeing is the demotion of a reserve currency from a safe status, to something less than that.

And if Germany leaves the euro, that’s a very climactic kind of market event. But no matter what policymakers try to do, they cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Confidence has been severely damaged, and the process of rebuilding it is almost impossible.

When the situation reaches this type of level, gold has always invited back into the system….